Week 2 Flashcards
What is the process of seeing?
- Reception: Our eyes receive via visual cortex (retina)
- Extraction: The process where our brain takes information from what we see and pulls out the key details like shapes, colours, patterns, and motions
- Inferring: Brain uses the extracted info to make assumptions or conclusions about what they’re seeing
What are Sayre’s 7 Steps to help think critically about art?
- Identify artistics decisions and choices
- Ask questions. Be curious
- Describe the object
- Question your assumptions
- Avoid an emotional response
- Don’t oversimplify or misrepresent the art object
- Tolerate uncertainty
What are the 3 basic components of art?
- Subject matter (what)
- Content (why)
- Form (how)
- A combination of these create an organic unity
What are semiotics?
The study of signs and symbols and their uses or interpretation
How do semiotics work?
Sign = signifier + signified
What are signs, signifiers, and signified?
Signifier: physical part of the sign
Signified: concept as a signifier when read as a sign
Sign: Combination of the two; something according to someone that stands for something
What is Saussure’s Theory?
That certain signs are “given” and consist of relations (cat = animal); can be defined by icons, index’s, and symbols; language and cultural impact this interpretation
What is Charles Sanders purse?
It consists of:
1. Index: inferred; obvious but not entirely
2. Symbol: a representation of something influenced by society and culture
3. Icons: Visually resembles its sign (which can be taken out of its context— hamburger icon for menu’s, floppy disks for saves)
What do denotations and connotations have to do with signs?
Denotations: Literal meanings
Connotations: Interpretive meanings
What does Plato think of arts?
“Representation of imitations of the real world”— Believed art could only reach higher forms of being
